1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to an image forming apparatus capable of carbon copy printing, an image forming system including the image forming apparatus, and a data output control method executed by the image forming apparatus.
2. Description of Related Arts
Carbon copy printing generally means a printing method which includes printing an original copy and a carbon copy of the same document data simultaneously in response to a single instruction to an image forming apparatus. As such, the carbon copy printing is particularly useful when user intends to print on a high quality sheet an original copy which serves as a delivery slip or an invoice to a customer, and to print on a regular quality sheet two carbon copies for internal use or for storage.
The Japanese Unexamined Publication No. H07-47724 discloses an image forming apparatus equipped with the carbon copy printing function, which includes a memory for storing information concerning various copy formats such as “Copy for User” and “Copy for Manager” and a printing unit for printing text data in one of the copy formats using the information stored in the memory.
However, the image forming apparatus in the prior art involves simultaneous processing of original and carbon copies in the carbon copy printing, and therefore it may cause the carbon copy to be undesirably outputted even when paper jam error occurs in the middle of the print processing of the original copy. As a result of this, the carbon copy output will remain on a paper ejection tray while original copy has been manually removed from the apparatus for disposal. Generally speaking, a carbon copy output like a delivery slip and an invoice does not make any purpose unless it is coupled with an original copy output. In fact, a carbon copy output without being an original copy could even cause a needless confusion among users as they don't know how to deal with the sole carbon copy output.
The present invention is intended to solve the aforementioned problems, and one of the objectives of the present invention is to provide an image forming apparatus, an image forming system, and a data output control method of the image forming apparatus, which can prevent adverse effects such as user's confusion due to the sole output of the carbon copy data without being accompanied by the original copy data.